Heart Palpitations

Not quite palpitations. I’ve had some chest pain the last couple days, felt like a knife in the center of my chest to be exact, but it wasn’t too bad. This morning I woke up and not only was it significantly worse my chest was constricted like there was a heavy band wrapped around it and my heartbeat felt wrong, I don’t really know how to describe it other than kind of “liquidy.” Needless to say I went to the hospital and walked into the emergency room around noon. It’s 11pm now and I just got home a little bit ago.

Because of a history of weak spots on my lungs and a collapse that occurred as a result of one they suspected a tear in the lung and X-rayed my chest before attaching a bunch of leads to me. No holes in the lung but my heartbeat was irregular. Next up came smearing goo on my chest and doing an ultrasound to look at my heart. Definitely a problem. More looking with the ultrasound and they ordered up some more bloodwork. Oh boy, more needles.

On the plus side I know I’m set on vitamins for a while, they gave me several vitamin shots, made me eat a lunch they prepared, made me eat another lunch a couple hours later that came right back up, made me eat dinner a couple hours later, and made me eat a second light dinner that I barely kept down.

So why the vitamins and forcefeeding? The bloodwork showed evidence of malnutritions which isn’t exactly a surprise as I’ve only been eating one meal a day, sometimes less. The weird heartbeat was a result of the malnutrition, my body getting sustenance from the only place it can, itself and compounding the existing damage. The damage usn’t irreparable but does require eating more often and making sure it’s nutritious. I now have to be afraid that not being able to eat because of stress and financial issues, may fuck up my heart more than it already was from oral abscesses spreading through the bloodstream and the pressure the collapsed lung and subsequent leaks from my lungs.

Once more into the fog

Im feeling lost again. My life was on track, I was on the road to standing on my own feet again, I had a solid daily routine and someone I could talk to when I needed, everything was as it needed to be. Then everyhing changed. Instead of getting closer to being self sufficient I started getting further from it because I lost my job and had to use what I had in the bank to live, now it’s gone and I”m about to lose everything I have. I no longer have a routine, there’s nothing to give me any kind of stability in my daily life and there’s nobody for me to turn to.

I would say the person I thought I could talk to is moving on with their life and leaving me behind except it’s become obvious I was nothing more than a combination taxi/loan service and now that she’s found someone with an income that’s better than what I had, multiple vehicles he can lend her since she has her license back, money to buy her a brand new top of the line phone, and a house for her to live in she no longer bothers with me except when she needs someone to pick her son up. One more person who was apparently just using me until someone more useful came along.

It’s all falling apart, and at the worst possible time of year. Breathing hurts more because of the cold and for almost 2 years now I’ve been more alone than ever before. For at least a month now I’ve been fighting tears from the time I wake up until I finally fall asleep, that’s when I lose that battle. I sleep no more than 4 hours a day so I’m always exhausted.

Once again I’m lost and alone with nothing but pain and fear.  I wake up, either rinse dried tears off my cheeks or wipe tears from my eyes while fighting to get them to stop, spend the entire day fighting to keep them inside, and when I go to sleep the fight ends and they fall.

It’s too much. I don’t know where I’m supposed to be or what I’m supposed to be doing at any time of any day. I don’t know how I’m going to hold on to what little I have. I don’t know how to manage anymore or where to turn for help. I don’t know what to do.

I Failed Them

January of 2009 I suffered a collapsed lung. One of my Baby Kitties, Optimus Prime, stayed by my side for the four days it took after the lung ruptured for me to finally go to the hospital because I couldn’t breath. When I came home from the hospital He didn’t leave my side for the next two weeks. One month to the day after my lung tore and collapsed Optimus left for the Rainbow Bridge.

In taking care of me He’d given me all His love and life to make sure I could take care of His MommyCat, Litter Sissies, and Big Sissies without keeping any for Himself. His life, which should have been 15-18 years, was cut short at less than two. I made my Opty a promise, and have resworn that vow many times in the five years since. I promised Him I would keep His family together and give the rest of my Babies the life they, and He, deserve.

I failed.

We’ve been staying with friends since losing my apartment in September due to the building being condemned as a result of the landlord not paying the water bill. My Babies stay in the basement because of the dogs in the house. I’ve been working a new job since February. The shifts are 10 hours, it’s in a refrigerated warehouse that’s mostly freezer, between the complications from the collapsed lung and the issues from the curve in my spine I’m in constant pain and always tired. Everyday when I get up I spend some time with my Babies talking to them and giving pets and scratches to whichever of them decide they want some love. I do the same when I get in from work in the morning.

Everyday I see them. Everyday I pet them. Everyday I have at least one of them in my lap, usually at least three. Everyday I failed to notice a problem.

When the dogs go out in the yard they sometimes bring in more than they left with. The friends providing us housing have a bag of diatomaceous earth in the basement because it happens every year. The dogs have been thumping the floors constantly for the last couple weeks and I didn’t notice. My cats have been less clustered and more “loner” for the last couple weeks and I chalked it up to them being in an antisocial mood. I’ve been getting bitten up and just assumed it was mosquitoes at work on break and lunch. I didn’t see the problem when it would have mattered.

Friday, May 30, Calicat Jackie was laying near the basement sink instead of in the box of magazines She’d claimed for Herself and I noticed Her back legs and tail were all matted and dirty. The furnace/AC has a drain pipe for the water that condenses in it when the AC is on but the cats keep knocking it away from the drain so it creates a puddle. I assumed She had been laying in the puddle and then got into something that got Her legs all dirty. I brought Her upstairs in the carrier to give Her a bath and while bathing Her I started seeing blood in the water. It was coming from around Her belly and the water draining off of Her neck and head. That’s when I saw the scratches from Her claws. I also saw the cause.

Fleas. That’s why the cats are keeping to themselves. They’re all uncomfortable, getting bitten up, and being predators they’re avoiding each other to not have their “weakness” taken advantage of.

The dogs brought fleas in from the yard, they’ve been spreading through the house, and my cats have them. I bathed Her multiple times to get as many of them off as I could, got Her dried off and even though I didn’t like doing it I took Her back to the basement in the carrier. I opened the door and left it like that so She could hide in there if She wanted and promised Her I’d make it all better when I got home from work.

After work I went to Walmart and got flea shampoo, spray for on the cats, and spray for furniture to kill the fleas. As soon as I got home I went downstairs to get Calicat and bathe Her first. She was still in the carrier, Her fur was still a mess from being towel dried, and when I called Her name and tapped on the side of the box She didn’t respond.

I was too late. Calicat had gone to the Bridge to join Her Brofur Optimus.

I lost it. I closed up the carrier and ran up the stairs to take it outside then went back down to look for the rest of my Babies. I got them all sprayed with the on body flea spray, got it rubbed in, then went back up and out to the yard to Calicat. I took the top off the carrier and when I shined a light on Her I could see the fleas leaving. The vile things killed Her and were trying to leave to find a new victim.

I lost it again. I got the can of furniture spray and used it. I wasn’t going to let those things just leave and go on with their lives. That wasn’t the end of it. I just couldn’t leave Her like that. The thought of those things on Her body was too much. I closed up the carrier and took her up to the bathroom to bathe her again. I had to get them off Her. I had to. The spray hadn’t been enough and there were some still alive. The flea shampoo took care of that. Those vile parasites were not going to infect another creature and they were not going to have my Baby as a cemetery.

I talked to her and cried the entire time. After I dried Her off I brushed Her fur flat with my hand, continued talking to Her, and finally wrapped Her up in the towel I use to dry my hair, the DaddyFur as I called it with them because they always groomed it after my showers when we had our own place and they could lay with me. Calicat always fixed my goatee for me, that was Hers alone. Now She’s gone because I didn’t see what I should have and the best I could do is to wrap Her in my towel before placing Her in a bag and putting her on the back porch until I can call the vet about cremation.

Wednesday, June 11th I went downstairs to get my Babies and take then to the bathroom for another round of flea baths and I found Lynx. She’d joined Her Litter Sissy at the Bridge with Opty.

I lost it again. I tended to Her, I killed those vile creatures, I cleaned them off of Her, and then I wrapped Her in a towel and dried Her off for the last time. She’d lay on my pillow curled around my head as I slept, curl up beside my chest when I stretched out to read, and lick my forehead and cheeks while purring when I wasn’t feeling good.

Two weeks, two Babies.

I failed Them.
I failed Calicat.
I failed Lynx
I failed Optimus.
I failed all my Babies.

She was suffering the pain of those bites and of scratching Herself open and I failed to see my Babies needed me. They took care of me when I needed it, but I failed to take care of them.
I deserve the pain I live in.

WoodZen

I’m starting a new job. I’ll be doing woodworking again. So what does that mean for me?

It means industrial machinery with sharp blades spinning at several thousand RPM’s. It means mechanical, pneumatic, and hydraulic clamps generating hundreds to thousands of pounds of pressure. It means handheld power tools with spinning blades and bits. In short, it means losing focus for a fraction of a second could result in injuries ranging from loss of a finger to loss of life.

Sounds scary, doesn’t it? Now imagine what that means for someone who isn’t really connected to the world around him. Think of the risks to someone who has to constantly make a conscious effort to not get lost in his head from the moment he wakes until he finally falls asleep. Sounds even scarier now. Luckily, even though I’m the person you just imagined when it comes to running machines I don’t get lost in my head; instead I discover the meaning of Zen.

So what do I mean by that? While an oversimplification, Zen Buddhists seek to fully experience the world Now. Not “now,” “Now.” This instant, this single fraction of a fraction of a second, no past or future. Nothing but “Now,” repeated over and over. That’s me on a machine. What I was just doing or will be doing don’t exist, only this very instant with me and the machine in perfect harmony with each other exists.

Instead of getting lost in myself, I find myself. It’s the only time I truly feel like myself because it’s the only time I lose my connection to my perception of myself. When conscious thought is replaced with true thought; right thought; Real Thought, without the conscious mind interfering I become Me. This is when I’m whole, when I’m free. It’s when I become more than just a reflection of a what the society says I’m supposed to be and become real.

If only I could figure out how to do that all the time.

Lonely World

I can’t relate to people. I used to try but in the end I accepted the futility of it and I gave up. I’m not like everyone else. I knew that when I was a child. At eight years old I’d already taught myself algebra, trigonometry, and calculus; had my first poem published which I’d written a year before; and I could look at complex machines such as the electric adding machines my grandfather repaired and figure out not only how they worked but how to fix them when they didn’t without anyone explaining it to me. What I couldn’t do included holding a conversation with my peers, starting a conversation with anyone, following conversations, or figure out what to say when someone directed the conversation to me because I had no clue what was being discussed. I couldn’t play any of the games other children played, whether video games or physical games. I didn’t have the needed coordination unless I could watch whatever part of my body needed to be in motion even if it was only peripherally. Contact sports were doubly out, even with family physical contact bothered me. Unless I already knew different, I believed everything I was told because I couldn’t tell when someone wasn’t being honest with me.

I wasn’t a normal eight year old and I knew it.

I’m not a normal adult and I know it.

I still can’t start or carry a conversation because to me the normal ebb and flow of conversation sounds like people are just saying whatever random things pop into their head. I still look at the ground in front of me as I’m walking so I can see my feet and keep them from getting tangled with each other. If I offer or ask for a hug it means that saying “I trust you with my life” is like saying there’s a little water in the Pacific because I’m still not even remotely comfortable with physical contact. I can’t handle crowds, places with a lot of noise even if it’s not loud. Fireworks at a distance are fine but up close the flashes and booms are too much. I can’t read people; facial expressions, body language, vocal inflection, etc have no meaning to me. I don’t even see them and even unusual phrasing doesn’t register with me. It all goes right past me as if it doesn’t exist leaving me with only the exact words spoken to me to go on which leaves me open to being taken advantage of by even the worst liars.

New places leave my heart racing but not in a good way, rather than excitement, it’s fear and anxiety that has my heat slamming into my ribs. Old places, familiar places, comfortable places, those are the safe places. I can go there, the places I’ve always gone are the places I can go to but even that can change. What is familiar and safe can become alien. Memories that start with climbing the stairs at 5 years old, right arm reaching up above my head to hold Nanny’s hand as she takes me to celebrate the end of my first day of school and getting a “tooter fish” sandwich, “a big one cuz I’m a big boy now, I go to school,” can become memories of betrayal, of having someone look me in the face saying one thing only to learn behind my back it was the opposite. Memories of discovering the “best sauce ever” and ordering a “cheese steak, extra cheese and super extra sauce cuz it’s the best” every week with Nanny can become meaningless next to memories of being used for others amusement and thrown away like garbage. Even safe places aren’t really safe.

While others go wherever whims take them, I follow a pattern. Everyday I go the same places, in the same order, and do the same things without change. I stick to my routine, it gives me a measure of normalcy in my life because it establishes normal for me. My routine is my normal, deviating from it in even a small way leaves me unsettled, big changes leave me lost, inside I become a ship with no rudder in a storm with no idea how not to capsize and sink.

I spend my time inside my head, lost in the maze of my thoughts with no connection to the world around me. When others drag me from my mind and out into the real world I temporarily connect to a small degree, when someone who has found their way into my world is around I make a concerted effort to connect for them but the mental and emotional drain that effort has on me comes with consequences, a need to fall into my head more deeply than usual and that results in thinking too much, over thinking things that don’t need any thought at all, which leaves me questioning what I know and getting myself all twisted up inside. When that happens I need a friend to pull me out of the quagmire in my head and set the world right for me but that requires pulling me out of my head enough that it leaves me needing to crawl back in continuing the cycle. A close friend will both save me from the dark corners of my mind and create the need to go deeper into them making it hard to ever be close to anyone.

How is someone who was born with broken and missing pieces supposed to find a place in a world that he can’t ever be a part of?

This is David

Great video for understanding the autistic mind.

If you tell someone who has autism something, even if its only mild, they will believe you.

“I’m your friend” means you’re they’re friend.
“I care about you” means you care about them.
“It hurts that you feel isolated and you’re so used to it you consider it normal” means it hurts you that they feel like that.
“You’re not alone, I’m here for you” means you’re there for them.
“If you need to talk you can come to me” means they can come to you if they need to.
“If we can’t talk here you can email me” means it’s OK to email you.
“Yes, but I’m not on facebook much so I’ll accept it when I go on again, this is my name on twitter” means you’ll accept their friend request on facebook and by giving them your twitter name you’ve told them they can add you there.
If you talk them into using a chat app and tell them to add you they will.
If you talk them into using a social networking site they aren’t on you’ve given the OK to add the only person they know on that site when they signup.
If you write a note to let them know something that isn’t anyone elses concern you’ve told them it’s OK to use written notes to communicate with you.

Of course all that applies even to the non-autistic people in the world, but to someone who’s autistic and is completely literal because of how their brain functions there is no other possible way for them to view those things. A B D means exactly that, the autistic brain does not seen an implied C which means if you do not say it they do not see it.

So why am I sharing this? Why am I being repetitive in my posts lately? The politically correct name for my condition is Asperger’s Syndrome, the polite no social stigma way of saying mild high functioning autism.

Paula Seaman, Manager of Tack’s Sandwich shop in Reading, PA knew this when she said all of the above things to me. She knew I would take it at face value because my brain wouldn’t allow me to see it any other way. She knew because I’d come to trust her and one day I opened my mouth and it fell out. The wall that kept it inside disappeared and I told her how I’m broken. Her response was simple, honest understanding.

Well, it looked like that on the surface. I’ve learned that emailing her to talk, subscribing to her feeds on twitter and the sites she talked me into using, and writing a note to let her know something bother her, make her uncomfortable, and have her “weirded out.” I know this because the owner of the business told me she’d told him that. She never said anything to me about it, she didn’t tell him what she’d said to me, and he didn’t want to hear what she’d said to me.

Mr. Charles Kondraski doesn’t care about the way someone who is not just an employee of his business but is the manager of his business played with an autistic customers head. He doesn’t care about the things other employees did. He only cared about jumping down my throat. In his defense, though not really, unless Paula told him about my condition he doesn’t know but that’s not really a defense. Treating customers like toys to be played with is very poor customer service and shouldn’t be allowed no matter who the customer is. It’s just worse when the customer is so easily taken advantage of and the employees know it.

I need to be safe

I’m fighting tears and I’m not really sure why other than my issues are piling up on me again. I’m feeling so lost and alone right now and I don’t know how to ask for help. Unsent letters aren’t going to help, this isn’t going to help, going for a drive won’t help, and neither will going somewhere that there’s people. It all just reinforces how isolated I am. I can’t do social unless I’m familiar and comfortable with the place and the people and even then it’s only if its just a couple people.

I can’t ever go anywhere new because it’s just to much to handle, nothing familiar or safe, people I don’t know and can’t understand because I don’t pick up on subtleties others take for granted, if I can’t find a place to hide and become part of the furniture I lose it. I go to the same places everyday like clockwork, same routine, same people, same places. It’s safe, but it’s not. Even in the same comfortable places I’m cut off, with the same familiar faces I’m alone, in the same safe places I’m still not really OK.

I don’t know what to do. The only way I can manage my issues is by avoiding situations that make them an issue which isn’t managing them at all. I get through life by avoiding life because it’s all I can do. I can’t even talk to anyone about it because there’s only a couple people I can open up to like that and life has seen to it that I can’t get together with them to just talk to them without having a bunch of other people around which will keep me from being able to talk.

I don’t know what to do anymore. I can’t even sleep right, it’s been a couple years since I could sleep through the night and I can’t remember the last time I didn’t wake up with a damp pillow and tears drying on my cheeks. I’m alone, I’m afraid, I’m barely managing to get through day to day, and as much it would help talking to a friend and just getting it out isn’t an option that’s being given to me. I wish I could just sit with someone and cry for a bit just to get it out, a friendly shoulder to catch my tears and arms to keep me safe would do so much more for me than rambling on in a blog but that’s what I have.

Lost In The Fog

Sitting here at the top of the mountain there’s nothing to be seen. Beyond 10 feet, the world disappears into a shroud of white. One could easily get lost on a night like this, but even if I was to walk down into the trees and wander where no trails go I wouldn’t be as lost there as I am inside.

Friends weren’t friends but still are. Lies were, then weren’t, then were again. Truth was, then wasn’t, then was once more. I don’t know what to believe, what can be believed. Reality which once seemed immutable but now appears ephemeral, even Now seems but a fleeting illusion. When Truth and Lies can change places how is someone to know what is?

Pain is real. Though there’s no steel there the knife that drives into my side with each breath is there, as are the ones in the center back and in my chest. Is that all there is? Is there nothing else in the world that truly is? Is pain the only thing that exists outside of fantasy? There has to be more.

I cannot fathom a world where the only lasting truth is pain, but I cannot find any other solid truth in the world. I find myself questioning everything. I want to trust the words, to know the actions as truth, but I cannot.

Where I once saw the truth of friendship I cannot see a thing. I have been blinded by the fog inside my soul and I have of no lighthouse to guide me safely past the rocks.

Almost 4 Years

It’s almost four years since I Optimus left us. There’s no way I can type what I’m feeling. It’s not that the words aren’t there, they are, I’d just never get them out. It still hurts to think that someone who deserved to live a long life wasn’t given the chance.

Those of you who know how much of a part of the family a “pet” is will understand. Those of you who’ve been following me know how isolated I am from the world and will understand my love for my fur-babies.

I miss Him. If you want to know what it truly means to love unconditionally, Opty can teach you, He taught me. Then He was gone.

Optimus Prime May 23, 2007 to Feb. 18, 2009
88 1/2 Hours
Oh, you’re a Transformer now? You think you’re Optimus Prime or something?”
I used to love the snow
Birdie Buddies
Dreams within Dreams
Six Kookies
It’s their birthday
Six Months
Letter to Opty – from an older post, deserves its own.
Almost a year
Optimus Prime

I’m Tired

I’m tired. 

I’m tired of being in pain all the time.  I’m tired of not being able to sleep.  I’m tired of troubled dreams.  I’m tired of the constnt pain of my waking life being in all my dreams. 

I’m tired of people.  I’m tired of games being played.  I’m tired of learning what I was told was nothing but lies.  I’m tired of false friends.  I’m tired of false hope. 

I’m just tired.

My Baby Kitties give me a reason to keep going for now.  Over the next ten or so years even they’ll leave me one by one until even they’re gone.  I already lost one, February 23 will be four years since Optimus left us.  He deserved far more than the two years He was given.  They all deserve more years than they’ll be given.  I’ll make them the best years I can.

After that though I don’t know.  I’ll still be in pain, possibly worse than now.  I’ll have fewer friends than I do now, if I even have any.  My life will have no purpose.  I could bring more Baby Kitties into it but that would just be creating an artificial purpose just to have one and would only force me to continue living with things I’m tired of living with now. 

I just don’t know anymore. Things weren’t great but they were OK. I was working a job I loved, i had a place i could go to find my Nanny, a way to manage what’s wrong with me, a friend who just understood me and made me feel better about who I am, so things were OK. Then it was all taken. I walked in the door so full of life I was going to explode and no more than fifteen minutes later I left with tears already on my cheeks. The friend was gone. The way to manage what’s broken was gone. The last place I could find Nanny was gone. The job became just a paycheck that requred getting out of bed.

Just like that I went from about to having things in my life starting to work out and being ready to burst with joy and share as much of it as as she needed with a real friend to having it all taken from me by her because she was only pretending to be a friend while helping someone else destroy my life.

I’m tired of trying to build something only to have everything I fought to accomplish taken.

I’m just tired.